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Looking at a 2016 Honda Odyssey with only 623 miles. This is the relevant part of the Carfax (edited to take out the dealership name). Basically, it had one owner purchased on 4/3/17. Then on 5/23/17 it says vehicle serviced , and a month later it's sold at auction. There were no accidents, damage, recalls, etc. It seems odd that it doesn't say it was sold back to the dealership...does this mean it was a lemon that had some issue covered under warranty? Or could it have been repossessed in that short period of time? Or (sorry this is a bit morbid) if the owner passed away and the car was returned to the dealership? I realize there's probably no way to know for sure, but any thoughts would be appreciated on whether you would consider this a red flag. Thanks in advance for any help
04/03/2017 *
Vehicle sold
04/13/2017 *
California
Motor Vehicle Dept.
Seaside, CA
Title issued or updated
First owner reported
Titled or registered as
personal vehicle
Loan or lien reported
05/23/2017 *
222 *
Vehicle serviced
06/26/2017 *
601 *
Auto Auction
Pacific Region
Vehicle sold at auction
Could also mean it was repossessed, or the vehicle was traded in by the original owner after 2 months for something else. Unfortunately you will never know.
As you already seem to know, it could have been any of the previously listed situations. My guess is repossessed because it went right to auction.
Some few years back when we bought our first Honda, the dealership had about a dozen used vehicles with under 2K miles on them. Sales rep told me that most of them were from people who bought a car and then realized they really couldn't afford the payments or their spouse had a conniption and made them bring it back. We ended up buying a previous model year accord with around 10K miles on it (from what I remember).
Repossession highly unlikely. The folks didn't have long enough to make more than 1 payment. It takes a lot more than that for repossession. The car was likely returned because they didn't like it or the buyer might have died and the family didn't want it. The car could have belonged to one of a dealers family members who didn't like it. Lots of scenarios, but no answers.
The gal stated that she bought it new at the dealer. But it had been titled before.
The story the dealer gave was that the new truck was first on a ship heading for South America. But turned back. That is why it had been titled twice. Once for ocean ship and 2nd time to gal.
If turned in, it wouldn't have been turned back into the dealership, it would have been turned over to the bank that offered the financing. In turn, the bank will then auction it off as soon as possible since they aren't in the business of owning vehicles. At the end of the day who cares as long as it wasn't totaled out for some reason. The vehicle will still carry forward the manufacturers warranty so if any issues come up, you can get them fixed under the warranty.
Be careful, if the Odyssey is for sale at a Honda dealership and the car is perfect with only 623 miles, it would be sold as Certified Pre-Owned. If auctioned off, it did not meet those standards.
My advice, if you buy an almost new car, make sure it’s a CPO. If not, just buy it new.
Thank you for all the advice. That's especially good to know about the Certified Pre-Owned standards. It's probably just fine, but I decided I'd rather not take the chance. Plenty of fish/cars in the sea after all
Be cautious of the Carfax Report. Read some of the other threads here about it.
What info that does show Carfax is probably correct, but many people seem to assume that the report is complete, and it very much may not be. They only report what has been told to them.
I owned a car that I Carfaxed, and saw it was missing several items that would have been of interest to a buyer.
It had just been totaled and during my search for a replacement, I got a free report of my now-dead car that I had owned from zero and had all the records. Of several services, 3 fender-benders and 2 major hits (over 6 years, all repaired by 'the other guy's insurance' at name repair shops, 1 fender bender and 1 major hit (and 2 services) didn't show up. I guess the shops I used didn't report the data to Carfax.
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